


A Different Kind of Forever

by Drag0nst0rm



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Highlander Fusion, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24236533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drag0nst0rm/pseuds/Drag0nst0rm
Summary: Immortality is nothing new for Caranthir.The lightning is.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 121





	A Different Kind of Forever

The first time he dies is at Alqualonde although he only figures that out later. At the time, the only thing he knows is that one moment there is a horrific pain at the back of his skull and then darkness. 

(Later he thinks he felt something shatter, but that is a confused memory, not a fact, and so he ignores it.) 

The next thing he knows, he’s waking up in a pool of blood, and Huan is licking his face rather frantically.

Huan springs back and whines the moment Carnistir blinks back to bewildered life, but Carnistir has far more important things to worry about than whatever Huan’s problem is. 

Something is laying across his legs. He’s pretty sure it used to be a person.

He doesn’t recognize them. 

He still looks away.

He shoves himself up onto his elbows and tries to feel the back of his head. His hair is caked in blood, but he can’t feel a bump in his skull, and there’s no noticeable indentation either, so maybe the blood is someone else’s. 

He decides not to think about it.

“There you are!” Tyelkormo’s shout sounds almost angry, and Carnistir is about to snap back that he hasn’t exactly been hiding, he’s been unconscious, and what was he supposed to do exactly, but then his brother actually comes into view, and his face is far too pale for a rage. Tyelkormo’s hand is shaking a little as he rubs Huan’s head, and so Carnistir manages to for once bite back all the things he would almost certainly regret saying later. “You found him. _Good_ dog. _Thank you.”_

Huan looks absurdly pleased with himself. 

“I assume we won?” Carnistir asks. He tries to yank his legs free from the - obstacle. He tries to forget the sensation the moment he’s successful.

Tyelkormo is there in a moment before he can even attempt to get up. “We did,” he assures him. “Don’t move just yet, let me check - “

“We can’t stay,” he says, half out of logic, half just to be contrary. He’s fine, he’s sure of it. 

Or he will be. He’d just - greatly prefer to be gone.

And it’s sensible, anyway. More of the Teleri will come soon.

“We’re loading the ships up now, and I will help you to one in a minute, but not before I check your head.”  
Tyelkormo looks almost ill, and Carnistir wonders if his brother is hurt or if his own injury is truly that alarming.

But Tyelkromo looks fine, and Carnistir is sure he is too. His head doesn’t even hurt anymore.

He insists upon this point for much longer than he feels should be strictly necessary.

Tyelkormo looks doubtful, but he eventually concedes that if Carnistir is capable of insulting him that creatively, he is probably not too brain damaged and can possibly be trusted to stand.

_This is the story as the Noldor tell it, though they do not realize they are doing so:_

_Sometimes their warriors burn with the power of a storm when they fall._

_(They say Feanor burned when he died. Why shouldn’t the rest of them?)_

_Sometimes a warrior gets up when the healers had lost all hope._

_(Manwe’s eagles have proven the Valar have not completely abandoned them. Why shouldn’t other blessings fall as well?)_

_Sometimes eternal youth is a bit more youthful than others._

_(But really, who’s to say?)_

He doesn’t think of it much. Why should he? With all the losses, all the horrors - a blow to the head that was a minor inconvenience at worst is nothing.

He does, admittedly, occasionally hear a buzzing noise with no visible source now. That . . . alright, that had never happened before Alqualonde. Possibly he should have let an actual healer look him over at some point after the ships set sail.

He can try one now, he supposes, but the buzzing isn’t that annoying, and it’s probably been too long to do anything. He can live with it. The Doom has promised far worse than this.

(And if an orc’s arrow hits him during a patrol, and he yanks it out before he can remember just why that’s such a bad idea, and the wound seals over before the skirmish ends - well, elves heal quickly. Everyone knows that. And it must have barely touched him, really, caught more in his armor than in his actual skin.)

(That must have been what happened.)

(And if he thinks, just for a moment, that he saw something that looked remarkably like lightning flicker over his skin, then it’s nothing, nothing at all.)

_This is the story as Men tell it before they know more of elves than the whispers of the Avari in the trees:_

_There are whispers in the forest, and the fey beings that make them are not always kind._

_There are whispers in the forest, and sometimes there are wails. If you follow the sound, you might not come back._

_If you do, you will come back with a child._

_Or at least something that looks like one._

He feels the buzzing even before the village of Men he has come to rescue comes into view. He thinks nothing of it until he sees the woman who is leading the Men’s charge go down with a spear in her chest.

This does not change the fact that when the fight is over, she is the one to approach him as their chief. 

He might think he saw a different woman - a sister or daughter, perhaps - but the blood is still thick on her tunic, and a hole is ripped through it where someone tore the spear out. 

The skin visible behind the rip is perfectly smooth.

The buzzing gets louder the closer he gets to her.

He offers her lands partly because he thinks it right and partly because he thinks it mutually beneficial. It is no one’s business but his just what one of those benefits would be.

But she turns him down, so he grits his teeth and at least convinces her to accept aid from their healers because he cannot, will not, leave without at least trying to figure out why there is lightning crackling under both of their skins.

She doesn’t object when he sits beside her outside of the tent the healers have erected to help the wounded. She is sitting in nothing but her undershirt and grimly scrubbing off as much of the blood off her tunic as she can, but the tear still gapes open.

“I can mend it, if you like,” he offers. He does not have nearly as many tools with him as he would at home, but a needle and thread are small enough and practical enough that he never travels without them.

She eyes him a little warily. “I didn’t think your folk’s princes did work like that.”

His cheeks redden a little, but he refuses to acknowledge the implication of insult in her tone. “Everyone has a craft,” he says, and the needle he pulls from his belt must be proof enough for her because she hands the tunic over easily enough.

Sewing is easy. Broaching the subject is harder, but he’s fortunate.

She does it for him.

“I didn’t think your people had any like us.”

“Like what?” he asks, unable to believe it could be this easy.

“Undying,” she says impatiently, as if this is obvious, and he doesn’t want to believe that it can be as all encompassing as she says.

She speaks into his silence. “The first time I died, I was eighteen,” she says. “I came back before the sun rose a degree higher in the sky. I didn’t want to believe my brother when he told me. But then he grew, and I - “ She gestures at herself.

He has seen her brother among the dead. He is not good at guessing Men’s ages, but her brother had looked old enough that he had mistaken him for her father.

“I guess your people don’t notice as much,” she adds thoughtfully, and she’s right. That much, at least, is a relief.

He is almost done mending the tear. He slows his work in case she leaves when he is done. “Are there others?”

She shrugs. “I’ve met one or two before you. I felt a third, but I couldn’t find them.” 

He thinks of the buzzing, like a warning before a storm, and knows exactly what she’s talking about.

He’s not sure whether it’s better or worse than a brain injury. 

He looks down and realizes that the tear is entirely gone. He hands the tunic back to her, his stitches nearly invisible.

She blinks at it.

She wanted it mended. He mended it. Why is she so surprised?

She doesn’t leave yet though. 

“You should know,” she says, “one of the one’s I met died. Head cut off by an orc. I don’t know if it was the weapon or the beheading or what, but you should know. Don’t get careless.”

He has no intention of doing so.

She stands to go, but she still lingers just a little. “There are stories that it’s something to do with your people, you know,” she says, almost too casually. “Since you don’t age, and there are rumors that if you die you’ll come back. Some people think you steal human children and switch them with your own, and that’s why we’re like this.”

The absurdity of this finally shocks him out of his silence. “Why in Arda would we do that?” he demands. He can’t imagine what he would want with a human child, or what would possess him to abandon his own should he be blessed with one.

Her lips twitch. “I have no idea. And it doesn’t make much sense if you’re like this too, and it’s not normal for your people. Still. Someone’s got to be leaving babies in the forest, and it isn’t us.”

For one horrible, horrible moment, he thinks that somehow Men have managed to get this far without figuring out where babies come from.

But her look is pitying, not naive. “You didn’t know?”

“Know what?” he demands.

“Our kind never have children,” she says. “And we’re never born properly either. Not where anyone can see us. We’re always just . . . found. Haldad found me at the edge of the forest as we travelled, and he couldn’t just leave a baby there, of course, so he took me in.” She shrugs. “All the others I’ve talked to have said the same.”

That’s not possible.

It’s a story her father had told her as a child, it must be, a story to cover some more terrible or awkward truth. These others she’s found must have been playing along or -

He doesn’t know. All he knows is that his father certainly didn’t find him at the edge of any woods.

“Who are these others?” he demands.

He is certain of the answers he will find, but still -

Still. He needs to ask.

_This is the story as the Haladin tell it, as the legend of the woman who led them grows:_

_Their chief’s spear is as strong in her hand now as it was the day she first took it up and led us on to victory. She is just as swift, just as fierce, and just as beautiful because -_

_Because she is beloved of an elf, so he kissed her and preserved her youth forever -_

_Because she is blessed by the Valar, so they endued her with their light to show their favor -_

_Because the spirits of our honored dead dwell in her to give her strength -_

_Because she fought death and won -_

_Because -_

_Because._

What convinces him, in the end, are the dwarves. Dwarves are not in the habit of lying to spare children’s feelings. Words are sacred to them, and though they will lie, they do so only in great need, never for small politeness’s sake.

He has been trading with Vili for decades, considers him a friend and is considered one in return, and Vili still swears him to secrecy three times before he lowers his voice and whispers of a dwarvish smith who is blessed by their Maker. 

He has to swear a further three times not to tell Telchar where he got his information before he tracks him down.

In the end, Telchar demands no explanations. The buzzing is enough. 

His story is no more reassuring than Haleth’s.

Even if it is true for the dwarves - even if it is true for Men - it doesn’t mean it works that way for elves. It doesn’t.

No matter how many times he tells himself that, he can’t help wishing Amil or Atar were here to tell him just how ridiculous he is being for even entertaining this notion.

It’s nothing. It has to be. It -

_This is the story as the dwarves tell it, though they tell it only to their own people, trusting no others:_

_Long ago, Mahal made our fathers from stone._

_When he is pleased with us, or when he knows our need is great, sometimes he takes up his old tools again. He leaves his work in mineshafts and mountain passes for a blessed family to find._

_The children he makes are strong and long-lived, and they unleash their wrath upon their enemies when they die._

_Dear Maedhros,_

_Don’t you dare laugh at me for this, and don’t ask questions._

_~~Were you there when I was -~~ _

_~~Do you remember -~~ _

_~~You would have told me if -~~ _

_I look like Atar, don’t I?_

He crumples the letter up in his hand and tosses it into the fire.

It’s nonsense, and he won’t spend any more time on it.

He hears Haleth is dead. In battle, they say.

He doesn’t ask if she was beheaded.

(She is decades older than Beor was when she dies.)

He wakes up in a pool of blood at Doriath.

Celegorm is lying across his legs. 

Celegorm does not wake up.

Neither does Curufin.

Dior does not wake up either. Caranthir cuts his head off anyway because he woke up in a pool of his brothers’ blood, and it was Dior’s sword buried in Celegorm’s stomach.

Celegorm had been standing in front of him. Celegorm had been protecting him. If he had just told him, told them - 

There is a buzzing in his head.

It is not anyone he hoped it would be.

It’s just a guard, one in Doriath’s uniform, and it is almost painfully easy to remove his head.

For just a moment the whole world is fire.

It’s only his imagination that the lightning brings forth a surge of power in his veins. It’s only - 

It’s nothing.

He staggers to his feet and goes to search for Dior’s children and tells himself that the sensations flickering at the edge of his mind have nothing to do with this decision at all.

He finds Maedhros.

Neither of them find the children.

(At Sirion, he is very careful not to make the same mistake again. He saves the children and tells himself it is entirely his own idea, or, if not, that the only other originator is Maglor.)

(He still loses two more brothers.)

_This is the story as the Valar tell it: They don’t. Whether this is because they know too much or too little is anyone’s guess._

“We could still steal them,” he says without enthusiasm when the Silmarils fall into the hands of the victorious army from Valinor. The Oath is a burning goad within him, when he pays attention to it, but mostly it’s hidden behind the burn of the lightning in his veins.

(There had been another two, at Sirion. Another two that had buzzed with lightning till the very end.)

He can ignore the Oath. He wants to ignore the Oath although he tries to tell himself he doesn’t.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to see it fulfilled, he does.

It’s just -

He wonders, if he takes up a gem, if his brothers’ Oaths will recognize him as kin.

He doesn’t want to find out the answer.

“We would do more ill in the keeping than the breaking,” Maglor says, and he looks impossibly weary as he says it.

He tells himself that’s why he’s making this argument.

That, and no other reason.

But Maedhros will not surrender, will not flee, and Maglor will not argue with him, so he trails after them and lets them be the first to pick up the SIlmarils. 

Maedhros burns without a hint of lightning of his own will, and Caranthir wishes he had fought harder to forget the gems, forget the Valar, and just drag them all somewhere impossibly far away.

Maglor throws his into the ocean, and Caranthir’s Oath burns, but he is so, so relieved that Maglor never pressed his refusal to touch it.

(“Do you remember the day I was born?” he asks when the night is dark, and the only Silmaril within even the illusion of reach is the one shining high overhead.

If Maglor is curious about the sudden topic, his voice gives no hint. “I remember getting the letter,” he says thoughtfully. “I wasn’t there at the time, of course, I was already training in Alqualonde. Why?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he says.

It doesn’t. It can’t. It won’t.

He’ll make sure of it.)

**Author's Note:**

> I elected to keep the Game out of it since knowledge of it doesn’t seem to be instinctual to new immortals which implies to me that it’s something imposed upon them/created by them, not something that necessarily has to be implicit, so in this AU, the Game has not yet begun. Caranthir will not be impressed by it when it is.
> 
> He will, on the other hand, be privately amused by Methos. When anyone asks, he will assure them that the other immortal is, indeed, the oldest Man alive. No one ever quite catches the particular emphasis he puts on that word.
> 
> (In this AU, Fingon finds Gil-Galad in the woods. Caranthir studiously avoids noticing all possible implications. He also avoids Gil-Galad.)


End file.
